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Hi, I'm real new to this forum, but read on another forum that there are a lot of great people who know there stuff over here. Glad to have found it.

Anyway, I am 28, 200lbs and 11% bf right now. I have worked on my diet and have been trying to cut for the last 4 months, but it is not going well. No matter how I change my diet, my body is not giving up without a fight.

I've got a couple thoughts. You're doing a ton of cardio, and also running a caloric deficit, while already being very lean. You're body obviously doesn't want to get rid of any fat, and the cardio isn't doing anything to help your metabolism.

You didn't mention any lifting, so we don't know what you're doing for that, but make no mistake, lifting is a huge part of cutting fat. It's lifting that will pump up your metabolism. Doing so much cardio makes your body work very efficiently, which is great for an athlete, but it may be that your body is working so efficiently that it doesn't NEED to use fat for energy. I'd recomend going back to maintenance calories for a while and pumping up the lifting, while backing off on the cardio quite a bit. Give your body a chance to recover, and actually give up some of that cordiovascular efficiency that's keeping you from using fat for energy. You'll gain a little water weight by going back to maitnenance, but you shouldn't gain any fat.

After a month or two your body should be ready to give up some more fat. You may have to cycle back and forth like that a few times to cut away that last little bit.

Anyway, I am 28, 200lbs and 11% bf right now. I have worked on my diet and have been trying to cut for the last 4 months, but it is not going well. No matter how I change my diet, my body is not giving up without a fight.

Welcome to the forum. If you wouldn't mind, give us a few more details so we can try to nail down the problem. How much weight have you lost during these 4 months?

Also, have you had any cheat days?

It would also be helpful to know your workout, as well as height. Height will help us determine how accurate your bodyfat percentage is and how much fat you have to lose.

Ok, well I started this journey hovering between 212-210 and I am 6'2.

At first I was just doing a 2on-1off-2on-2off with a ton of compound movements and then some isolation work to finish it off. After I couldn't bring intensity to my workouts anymore I deloaded for 1 week and reworked my workout.

Next was 3on-1off-3on-1off and so on. The workout was a reverse pyramid, hitting each muscle group directly on 2x's per week with a set of 9 (try to fail at 9) then stripping off 10% during a 30second break and then hitting it again for 9, same thing and again for 9

It allowed me to go all out on each set of my workout and the short breaks had my heart going bonkers. I made some good progress on this.

Now I have just taken 1 week off from lifting, still dieted, and I am starting Layne Norton's Power/Hypertrophy routine (with some adjustments)

I have 1 cheat meal every Sat evening, usually the last one of the night. On Sat I cut my fat down and protein a bit too. Meal is followed by a bunch of ALA.

Ideally, I would like to be carrying around 10lb more pounds of lean muscle. I want to compete next July, but I feel like I need to lean out now just to make sure I don't run into this problem before a show and to see what I need to work on.

I will try to figure out how to post some pictures today. I really do appreciate all of the help. I've never been to a forum where people reply so quickly!!!! This is awesome!

Ok, well I started this journey hovering between 212-210 and I am 6'2.

That's a 10-12 pound loss in 4 months which is 2.5-3 pounds per month. A good cutting pace is about 1.5-2 pounds per week or 6-8 pounds per month. You are about 4-5 pounds shy.

Your daily calories were at 2050. I would back them down to 1800.

Your workout looks fine. It sounds like you were pushing for progression and that's good.

Quote:

Now I have just taken 1 week off from lifting, still dieted, and I am starting Layne Norton's Power/Hypertrophy routine (with some adjustments)

Good.

Quote:

Ideally, I would like to be carrying around 10lb more pounds of lean muscle. I want to compete next July, but I feel like I need to lean out now just to make sure I don't run into this problem before a show and to see what I need to work on.

My guess is that right now everything is a weakness. Don't take that personally by any means. It's not meant like that. If you are 11% bodyfat you are 20 pounds of muscle shy of your natural potential range, and tells me you have some good room to grow.

If by some chance you are 13-15% then even more room to grow.

A picture will help. We have a lot of seasoned lifters here who can tell you your weaknesses and help you formulate a plan.

I glad to hear that! If I didn't have room to grow then I would be the most frustrated person on the planet!

Do you think throwing a carb+Fat refeed (800-1000cals) on Tuesday evening as my last meal + my cheat meal on Sat will be overkill???? I want to spark some good muscle growth and try to shed some of this fat at the same time. I know that won't last forever, but I would hate to bulk and get anymore bf than I already have.

Sorry for the bad pics. My phone is on its last leg. I'm open for any and all suggestions and ready to "do this" so that I can hit the stage next year.

You already are in complete control over your diet, which is awesome. You're going to need to eat over maintenance to build as long as you stay natty, but that doesn't mean you need to get fat. It is, however, going to be very tough to stay in single digit BF% while you bulk, even on a lean bulk. If you want to add mass, which looking at your pictures would be a good idea, you're probably going to have to give that up for now.

I'd say you'll probably be able to stay at or under maybe 13%, as you seem naturally pretty lean. Lots of heavy rows and benches to get that upper body poppin'!

You think I should just crank my carbs up? I always feel like I don't do real well on a lot of carbs, but to get in somewhat of a positive cal state I think I need to be somewhere in the 350-360g of carbs per day.

I train 5 days a week and would want to do something cyclical so I don't gain a bunch of fat. Maybe crank the carbs up on training days and drop them back to 60g on non-training days.